


Mind Is A Battlefield

by stepantrofimovic



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Andrew Garner/Melinda May, TAHITI is no magical place, Telepathic Bond, canon non-consensual medical procedures, mention of Phil Coulson/Audrey Nathan, no infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 17:23:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12798906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stepantrofimovic/pseuds/stepantrofimovic
Summary: On a mission straight out of the Academy, an encounter with an alien artifact leaves Agents Coulson and May telepathically linked. Navigating the unfamiliar level of intimacy is difficult enough, even without everything else in their life seemingly coming to threaten the bond: life at SHIELD, Melinda’s marriage, Bahrain, and Loki. Then Phil comes back from the dead, and Melinda is faced with a new challenge: the bond is as damaged as Phil’s memories are, and keeping Phil safe means keeping him in the dark.This story follows pre-canon and canon events to the end of AoS season 1.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was born out of a prompt by [calltomuster](https://calltomuster.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, asking for a fic where Phil and Melinda became telepathically bonded on a mission right out of the Academy. That was… a couple of years ago, now. A timely fill, this was not. Still, I’m very happy I’ve managed to write it for the Philinda Bang, at least.
> 
> I'm also extremely happy to be collaborating with the amazing Andry (aka [travelerontheedge17](http://travelerontheedge17.tumblr.com/)) for this Bang. Go check out the amazing art she made for this fic [here](http://travelerontheedge17.tumblr.com/post/167805123425/i-did-it-for-you-to-protect-you-you-mean-a-lot). I am beyond impressed with what she did, and couldn't have wished for a better partner!

Melinda has never seen Phil Coulson so excited. True, they’ve only been working together for the last couple of months, so it’s not like she has a lot to go on. This is, all things considered, their first real mission after their graduation from the Academy – the couple of milk runs they were sent on right after they started don’t count, and Melinda is not talking or even thinking about Sausalito ever again, thank you very much. (Unless it’s for revenge, of course.) They’re being sent to investigate some sort of mysterious artifact, which is admittedly not the sort of task SHIELD usually gives to rookies. Then, again, with his background as a historian before the Academy, Coulson has exactly the sort of knowledge SHIELD needs in this situation.

That said, there’s really no reason for Coulson to be almost bouncing on the balls of his toes, and yet, here he is, doing just that. (Never mind that Melinda finds it sort of cute. She’s doing her best not to pay attention to this sort of thought.) “We’re being sent to investigate an 0-8-4, May!” he exclaims. “An unknown object! Do you know how long it’s been since SHIELD last got one of those?”

“No idea, but I guess you’ll enlighten me soon enough,” Melinda teases lightly. One thing she’s learned about Phil Coulson in the past two months is, he likes to geek about things. Aloud.

“You see, the last confirmed one was –”

Melinda relaxes into the back of her Quinjet seat – as much as it’s possible to relax into a Quinjet seat, at least – and settles in for a long story. She knows Phil’s penchant for storytelling won’t disappoint, not even when they’re flying out to the middle of nowhere.

***

“I mean, I wouldn’t have minded if this mysterious thing was found anywhere _else_ than in central Alaska,” Jasper Sitwell, the third field agent on this mission and only marginally more experienced than Coulson and May, complains loudly. “I’ve never seen so many mosquitoes in one place.”

“Well, at least we know that the new repellent from R&D works. And on the first try, even. This has to be a first for them.” The swarms of buzzing insects have done nothing to wipe the excited expression off Coulson’s face. Still, he seems to be focused on the task at hand, at least, which is always a good thing.

After all, Melinda can’t say she doesn’t like working with Coulson. Deputy Director Fury did anticipate that they would make a good team, and it seems he was right. (If you ignore Sausalito. Which is what Melinda is doing.)

The 0-8-4 was unearthed during a petrol drill about 30 miles away from Anchorage, so it doesn’t take long for the team to get there. The coast looks clear of any competitors, too – all things considered, it’s starting to look like this mission won’t be much more exciting than their last ones, despite Coulson’s high expectations.

Melinda doesn’t mind. A milk run is always better than ending up neck-deep in chilly waters for hours.

The object itself resembles some sort of scepter, or at least a staff, topped with a bright gem set in what looks a lot like gold. If it is solid gold, Melinda quickly does the math in her head, the staff itself must be priceless, and that’s not even considering whatever mysterious reasons brought in on SHIELD’s radar. As for the gem, it’s hard to look away from its gleaming glow – it dances and shimmers with a light that looks like more than a mere reflection of the sun.

As they’re staring at it, Melinda is overcome with an overpowering desire to hold out her hand and touch the scepter. A glance at Coulson and Sitwell’s faces tells her that they’re experiencing the same feeling. She may have limited experience in the field, but every instinct tells her this kind of phenomenon is never a good sign.

“We should probably try and get this thing to a safe place,” Melinda suggests. “ _Without_ touching it.” Her words seem to shake the others out of their trance, and they start setting their equipment down.

The rest happens so fast that, years later, Melinda will still have trouble reconstructing the exact sequence of events. Sitwell screams “Get down!” as the first gunshots start raining on them. There are at least ten men coming out of the woods all around, and Melinda barely has time to fling herself into the ditch where the scepter is lying. Coulson is at her side, weapon drawn, despite the odds being so obviously against them. Sitwell has been hit and is at least unconscious – maybe worse. Melinda remembers hoping with all her might that it’s not worse. The mission was not supposed to end like this.

This, she will soon realize, is the last thought she can say for sure belongs entirely to her.

The last thing she remembers is Coulson locking eyes with her and reaching for the scepter. As he touches it, he grabs her hand.

When Melinda regains consciousness – a few minutes later, as far as she can tell – they’re still lying in the ditch. A quick survey of the terrain, performed by crouching up and looking around, reveals about a dozen men in full, albeit non-standard, military gear lying still around them. Dead, Melinda realizes with full certainty, not knowing how she knows that. The scepter, for its part, is nowhere to be found.

The next thing Melinda knows, she’s being knocked to her knees as something – some _one_ – enters her mind. Next to her, Coulson has just opened his eyes. The look on his face mirrors Melinda’s fear.

***

The best doctors and scientists SHIELD can get a hold of – and that’s saying something – pick and prod at Phil and Melinda’s brains for days before finally declaring them a lost cause. Melinda doesn’t know whether to be grateful that they’re finished with the endless batteries of tests, or scared that no one seems to have an explanation. Or, which matters more, a way to keep this under control.

She’s seen most of Phil’s memories by now, and she knows it’s the same for him. In her dreams, she’s surrounded by faces and places she doesn’t recognize. Last night, she woke up almost crying from a dream about an unknown woman in a hospital bed. And she’s pretty sure she’s never been afraid of heights before.

It’s also becoming increasingly difficult to tell which parts of ‘before’ belong to her and not Phil.

It hurts, being forced to share like this. At least it’s Phil, Melinda thinks from time to time. _Imagine if it was someone you didn’t trust._

Then, again, she can’t be sure that this last thought comes entirely from her either.

 _We’ll be all right_ , Phil thinks, and this time Melinda knows that he wanted her to hear. They’ve been trying to figure out how conscious communication works, and right now it’s pretty much the only thing they’ve managed. The issue, of course, is with drowning out all the rest.

 _You think?_ she shoots back, not bothering to try and shield her anger at the platitude. The feedback of hurt and regret she gets from Phil is physically painful. She does her best to ignore it.

***

“I know someone who might be able to help,” Deputy Director Fury says, handing Melinda a manila folder. That he doesn’t even bother getting a copy for Phil is infuriating enough.

She flips the folder open and takes a cursory look at the documents inside, then frowns. She doesn’t get how –

“How is the headmaster of a _school for gifted youngsters_ supposed to help us?” Phil asks. Then he turns sharply towards Melinda. “That was not _my_ question,” he hisses. The sudden spike of annoyance cuts through her mind like a knife. It stings about as much, too.

Fury rolls his eyes. “You two need help, and you need it yesterday. All I can tell you is that the Professor can give it to you. You’re leaving for Westchester in thirty. Pack your things.”

***

They learn two things from Professor Xavier. One, that having someone poke around in your head never becomes pleasant, not even when that person is using their own mind rather than some sort of scientific instrument. Two, that this thing between them – low-level telepathic bond, the Professor says – is not going away.

Oh, and there’s also the fact that there are other people around who are able to do what the two of them are doing, but that doesn’t make the way it’s happened to them any less unique – or terrifying, she can admit, in the (suddenly very relative) privacy of her own mind.

Apart from that, Melinda must admit that her stay in Westchester with Phil is not bad at all. They’re on leave from SHIELD until they manage to get their connection under some sort of control – something that Professor Xavier assures them is possible, at least on the telepathic level. As for the layer of empathic communication, that one apparently cannot be shut down.

“So, basically, we’ll be able to keep our thoughts private –”

“Unless one of you wants to project something, yes,” Professor Xavier interrupts, mildly.

“– but we’ll keep feeling what the other is feeling all the time?”

“More or less. I’d say that you’ll be aware of what each of you is feeling, rather than feel it, but my abilities are quite different from what you are experiencing, so I don’t doubt that you have a clearer picture of the situation than I do.”

Melinda doesn’t have to consciously check the bond to know that her nervousness is shared by Phil.

***

She wakes up drenched in sweat from a dream she remembers only by half. For a moment, the unfamiliar surroundings throw her off, before she remembers that she’s still in her room in Xavier’s mansion. One moment later, she remembers that there’s someone else in her head.

 _Sorry_ , she projects through the bond, as clearly as she can, using one of the techniques the Professor has been teaching them. _This one was mine._

Phil’s mental voice – Melinda doesn’t know how to describe it in full, not yet, but it’s a blend of books and firewood and the scratchy-soft feeling of wool sweaters against her cheek. In a word, it’s everything she would never have associated with Phil Coulson if she hadn’t touched his mind. Anyway, Phil’s mental voice surfaces against her thoughts after a moment. He feels unsteady, both from the nightmare and from the effort not to touch anything in her mind unbidden. They’re still working on that part, and control is difficult. _It’s okay_ , he projects. _Seen this one before._

_That isn’t reassuring in the slightest._

In her mind, Phil laughs. It’s a feeling Melinda couldn’t have imagined in a million years, to have someone else laughing in your mind. For a moment, their connection solidifies so much that she’s looking at another room through Phil’s eyes.

They both pull back as if they’ve been scalded. Phil is the first to resume their communication, but this time, he sounds more distant – less like he’s setting foot in Melinda’s brain.

 _Are you okay?_ he asks.

 _You know I am_ , Melinda smiles. _It was just a dream._

Phil hums noncommittally. _It was a bad dream._

_Those happen, sometimes._

_I’m sorry_ , he says, and then he does something that feels a lot like a caress to Melinda’s mind. She can feel his surprise when he realizes what he did. _Okay, that shouldn’t have been possible._

It’s her turn to laugh. _Apparently, it is. You know, I’m starting to think this whole thing might prove interesting._

_For SHIELD, sure. When have they ever had two agents that were mentally linked? Which reminds me – we need to test this for strength. And distance. Time doesn’t seem to be a factor, since the bond is permanent. Would we be able to communicate if one of us was drugged? Unconscious? What happens if –_

Melinda relaxes back into her pillow and listens to Phil babble. In a corner of her mind that she hopes is relatively private, she’s starting to feel embarrassingly happy that this thing happened to them, and not someone else.

She falls asleep while Phil is still talking. The next morning, she can still remember everything he said while she was sleeping.


	2. Chapter 2

The bond does, indeed, prove to be an advantage in the field. As soon as they get back from Westchester, Fury insists on testing their limits along the parameters Phil first laid out. The results are encouraging, if unstable – the farthest distance they can keep up a clear connection at, for instance, seems to be about twenty miles, but despite that they never seem to lose a feeling, so to speak, for the other no matter how far they are, not even across the continent. They don’t talk about it, but Phil knows that Melinda shares his relief at knowing that they’ll never be separated completely. They’re both starting to forget how it felt to be alone in their heads, and as far as Phil is concerned, he knows with a fierce certainty that he doesn’t want to go back.

The first time they get an occasion to test the bond’s resistance to chemicals is during a mission in Manila, when Melinda gets sedated and kidnapped. The bright side, if one could even speak of a bright side, is that Phil is able to locate her in about half the time they would normally need for a standard search-and-rescue. On the other hand, the feedback from the bond is so strong that Phil feels sick the whole time. He can’t even tell if it’s a side-effect of the drug or just the anxiety that comes with not knowing that Melinda is safe – no, knowing that she is _not_ safe, she’s hurt, and if they don’t get to her in time, she might –

He fights to breathe around the feeling of Melinda’s mind slipping in and out of his as her consciousness wavers. _Stay with me_ , he keeps projecting. _Stay with me. I’m here._

When they do find Melinda, Phil holds her close in both his arms and his mind as he carries her out. It takes some effort to convince him to let go of her long enough for the medical personnel to perform their usual checks. They declare her whole enough, apart from a worrisome number of bruises and cuts. She didn’t even break a bone, they say lightly, and Phil has to struggle to keep his anger in check for a moment. The drug has mostly cleared from her system by now, but the doctor in charge still orders her to be kept overnight for observation.

As she lies in the hospital bed, Phil finds that he can’t take his eyes off her. His mind is going through a panicked loop of _I almost lost her – don’t think about that when she can hear you – yes but I almost lost her_. He tries to calm himself down by matching his breath to the rhythmic rise and fall of Melinda’s chest, but it only highlights the difference between the steady – albeit asleep – presence of Melinda’s mind in his and the horrifying feeling of it slipping away, just a few hours before. _What will happen when she disappears?_ he finds himself asking. _What will I do?_

_I can hear you worrying._ Melinda’s voice in his head. Phil’s cheeks turn red with embarrassment.

_I thought you were asleep_ , he tells her.

_I was_ , comes the rather peeved answer. _You woke me up with your fretting._

_Sorry_ , he projects, focusing all his regret through their bond.

_Okay, whoa, I get it, no need to be dramatic._ Melinda’s eye-roll is perceptible even though, technically, she hasn’t opened her eyes yet. _Relax, and stop doing that thing with your hands._

_What thi– oh, right._ Looking down, Phil realizes that he’s been picking at the skin around his nails for a while. An old childhood habit resurfacing. _Sorry_ , he says again, sheepishly.

_Don’t be an idiot_ , Melinda chides him gently, her mind brushing over his in a brief caress. (They’ve perfected that gesture a while ago, even if they don’t use it so often.) Phil sighs and lets his shoulders relax a little. _Come join me in bed,_ she tells him, the mental shove she gives him brooking no argument. _You won’t sleep a wink in that chair._

As he obeys, stretching down at Melinda’s side, careful not to touch her any more than the narrow cot already forces him to, he sends her a last grateful thought. The last thing he sees before he closes his eyes is her answering smile.

***

It’s not the last time they come close to losing contact with each other, of course. Whether it’s a severe injury, drugs, or – on one occasion they would both be glad to forget – a rogue telepath going straight for their bond, they should be getting used to the feeling of the other’s presence wavering and threatening to disappear from their mind.

Which, of course, doesn’t mean that it gets any less horrifying every time it happens. They merely have to perfect their means of coping with it in the aftermath – the brief touches from one mind to the other, the understanding that for a few days, one of them will need the other to be more present, a constant reassurance that everything is fine, that no one is going away. They’re falling into a pattern by now – a pattern that also includes as much physical closeness as is needed to remind each other that they’re both whole, in body as well as in mind.

That is pretty much guaranteed to start rumors, of course. The advantage of being at SHIELD, however, is that it doesn’t take much more than a glare from Deputy-rumored-soon-to-be Director Fury to kill the gossip before it spreads.

Things change when Melinda meets Dr Garner, of course. They were bound to, at some point, Phil tells himself. It’s not just the sheer amount of blocking that suddenly needs to be put in place (there are things Phil _really_ doesn’t need to know, or witness, as much as he cares about Melinda’s happiness and is proud that he can share it) – it’s the many topics they start dancing around, the feelings they can both recognize, but never mention. It’s the way Phil closes his eyes against Melinda’s uncertainty when she thinks about a life with Andrew, in exchange for her own silence about the insuppressible stabs of jealousy he feels when he sees them close together.

He can’t even tell if he’s simply jealous of Melinda – difficult as that would be to live with, it would at least be the first relatively straightforward thing in this whole tangled mess –, or if it’s more about her finding someone to share her life with when he’s still alone (apart from her, and he still doesn’t know if he wants anyone else). Or, again, maybe he’s just wary because Melinda being intimate with Dr Garner means that Phil doesn’t have a choice but get close to him as well. He knows that Melinda believes it’s the latter, and he tries his best not to do anything to disprove that impression.

The weird part about being mentally linked, Phil thinks, is how easily his thoughts can blend into Melinda’s if he allows them to. The stronger her belief that the mess in Phil’s emotions comes from anything other than the wish to be in Dr Garner’s place, the harder it becomes for Phil to consider the alternative.

The most important (and incredible) thing, Phil has to remind himself from time to time, is that Andrew actually understands what’s going on, as much as that is possible without being a part of it. Maybe it’s his professional background, but he didn’t bat an eye when Melinda explained the situation to him (except to express his inexhaustible curiosity about how this happened to them, how it worked, and scores of little details about their bond, some of which Phil had never even thought about). He doesn’t seem jealous of Phil’s (very literal) presence in Melinda’s life, and he never thinks of making her choose between them or anything equally idiotic. All in all, Phil is very grateful that Melinda met Dr Garner of all people, and deeply ashamed of himself for not being as clear-headed and open-minded about this whole thing as Andrew, an outsider, is.

The one thing that seems clear, as Melinda and Andrew move in together and finally get married (with Phil standing at Melinda’s side as her best man, of course), is that this is as permanent as it can be. This is their life now, at least for the foreseeable future. Neither Phil nor Melinda happens to stop and think about how flimsy that sort of security tends to be for two world-class special agents.

***

Phil’s most vivid memory about Bahrain is of standing outside the building their target has taken control of, struggling to find a remotely believable excuse to feed to local law enforcement in order to gain them some more time, all the while fighting to contain the storm of emotion that is filtering through from Melinda’s mind. Because whatever is happening inside that building has shaken Melinda to the core, leaving her more scared and horrified than he remembers ever feeling her. The most terrifying thing, however, is the bleak desperation that is slowly seeping into her thoughts. Phil doesn’t know what she’s facing – she’s being very careful to keep her barriers up so that he doesn’t see what she sees –, but he can tell that she’s started to think that this thing, whatever it is, will be the death of her.

It makes him utterly furious.

It’s when he realizes that she’s thinking about a way to somehow close off her mind, sever the bond before it’s too late, that he finally snaps. _No_ , he sends her, trying to convey everything he’s feeling through that one word. _I won’t let you. I’m not letting you go._

When she finally comes out of the building, he starts to sense the depth of the damage this mission has done to her mind. For a moment, as he struggles to make sense of the bits and pieces of what happened that are finally filtering through their connection, he finds himself wondering if not letting her go was really the best thing he could do.

***

“Melinda.” He corners her in an empty break room at the Triskelion. About a week has passed since the Bahrain mission, and she’s spent the entirety of it avoiding him.

What she can’t avoid, of course, is him feeling the constant stream of emotions that have been clouding her mind, no matter how much effort she puts into dampening them. He knows she’s hurting, and he has a pretty accurate idea how much. And he knows that what happened with the girl (because there was a girl, and that explains so many things, especially with her and Andrew just so recently thinking about having children) has shaken her world-view down to the core. What he doesn’t know is whether she’ll ever be able to make sense of what she’s feeling and move on.

Judging from the transfer request that reached his office this morning, she shares his worry.

“Phil.” Her tone is flat, the contrast with her inner turmoil jarring. “Can I do something for you?”

“You can start by explaining this.” As he speaks, he hands her the transfer request form. He didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but he’s barely sleeping because of her nightmares, and he’s shared each and every one of her arguments with Andrew in the past few days. He’s tired and angry and hurt, and at the same time, he just wants to help.

That, he thinks, is not a particularly good combination.

She barely glances down at the form. She probably knew that Phil was coming and why, after all. “I think that is pretty self-explanatory.”

“A transfer, Mel? To _HR_?”

She flinches at the nickname, the hurt filtering through their bond making Phil regret his choice immediately. Still, her only reply is a flat “yes.”

“You can’t ask me to approve that,” he exclaims, his voice louder than he was expecting.

She levels him a look that reminds him of the old Melinda. “I can. I did. And if you’re in any way reasonable about this, you will approve it. You know it’s the best choice.”

He does. He’s still not admitting it, not unless she forces him. “There are other choices.”

She gives him a smile that is so empty, so utterly removed from her emotions, that it makes Phil’s heart constrict painfully in his chest. “Not really. You know I can’t go back in the field right now. And –” she raises a hand to silence his objections “– I don’t want to. You need to let me go, Phil.”

_That’s the one thing I cannot do_ , he thinks bitterly. Some of it must have bled through, because Melinda starts to turn away.

Honesty is the only thing he has left. “I just want to help.”

Melinda’s retort is sharp. “I don’t need help.”

“I’m _in your head_ , Melinda. I know exactly how much you do.”

Another lifeless smile. “Yes. And despite that, I’m telling you that I don’t need it. You’re free to make what you want of that.”

He knows what to make of it, of course. She’s projecting her rejection quite clearly, and he doesn’t doubt for a second that it’s a conscious choice. All things considered, he thinks he’s dispensed from saying goodbye as he goes.

He authorizes the transfer that very afternoon. He hates himself for hoping that Melinda can feel his disappointment while he does.

***

One week later, Phil drops by Melinda’s new office in HR (not a proper office, but a shared space with three other agents – he knows exactly how much that bothers her, having people working and moving behind her back) with coffee and biscuits. She accepts them without protest, but she still doesn’t talk about the emptiness that Phil can still see in her mind.

Over the next months, Phil is there for every nightmare, every flashback episode in Andrew and Melinda’s kitchen. He’s there for a talk about children, one night, during which Melinda’s emotions are so dark that they leave _him_ curled up in his empty bed and shaking, aching for something that it should be biologically impossible for him to miss.

He reaches out for Melinda that night, sending her the mental caress that they’ve shared so many times in the past. She pushes him away so hard, it feels like there’s a crack in his mind for the next few days.

He’s there during the divorce. They still don’t discuss any of it, not openly. When it’s through, when the last papers are signed, he comes knocking at Melinda’s new, tiny apartment with a bottle of scotch. She doesn’t push him away, this time, but he can feel her annoyance at his attempts to comfort her, so he stops trying, or at least tries to be less open about it.

It still hurts. He doesn’t know if the hurt is his or Melinda’s – if anything, he’s starting to question whether the distinction makes any sense at all.

***

In the meantime, it’s not like Phil has made no efforts of his own at the whole dating thing, not exactly. Most of these attempts don’t get past the first couple of meetings – comes with being a secret agent, even before they hit on the little ‘oh, by the way, I’m telepathically bonded with my best friend’ issue. There’s one or two that get serious enough that he starts thinking that he should mention Melinda. That’s when he ends up finding a reason to break things up.

He’s no Andrew, he thinks. (Then he prays that Melinda didn’t catch that.) He’s not ready to let someone else in on this, not with how fragile their bond still feels, even after years. Especially since Bahrain.

It takes him embarrassingly long to figure out that Melinda is angry with him, and why. When she finally lets the reason close enough to the surface – _I won’t have you miss out on things because of me_ , she thinks, loud enough that Phil can hear – Phil has to put up his strongest barriers to avoid her picking up on how devastatingly sad that thought makes him.

He meets Audrey not much later. He’s not as lucky as Melinda – his new partner doesn’t have SHIELD clearance, which means that he can’t find a way to tell her about the telepathic bond without handwaving a lot of details away and, more importantly, sounding completely out of his mind. Still, she easily accepts Melinda as Phil’s closest friend, and she doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that he obviously cares for her, or by how often he mentions her. Instead, she keeps asking when she’ll finally meet her.

“I’m curious,” she says. “She sounds like a lovely person. And way more interesting than you,” she teases.

Phil smiles, and wills some of his happiness to seep through to Melinda.

_I like her_ , she projects, her voice distant but still there at his side, and Phil can feel her smile.

_I think I like her too_ , he answers, with a smile of his own.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter needs **warnings** for: (temporary) major character death, telepathically shared; and, of course, TAHITI, with everything that comes along with it – non-consensual medical procedures, torture –, only multiplied by two people. Plus a whole tangle of (non-sexual) consent issues that are specific to this fic; if you’re worried about these, please contact me in the comments or [on Tumblr](http://stepantrofimovic.tumblr.com/ask), as I can’t really give more details without spoiling the rest of the fic.

In the end, they don’t get around to organizing a meeting with Audrey before Phil gets assigned to a new project. Melinda’s clearance is not high enough to know anything past the codename – TAHITI, of all things, because SHIELD has never gotten past its acronym problem.

Whatever it is, however, she can’t help but notice that the shared nightmares between her and Phil are not coming mostly from her anymore.

Phil is tired, he’s seeing Audrey less and less, and his mind, when Melinda brushes against it, is a disconcerting knot of obsessive thoughts about death. He hadn’t been so stressed when he was looking after Tony Stark, and Melinda knew how much that mission had made him worry, his outward annoyance at the billionaire notwithstanding. Still, Melinda doesn’t ask, doesn’t prod. Even without the agency-specific issues (and really, who thought that giving her a different clearance level from Phil was a good idea), she’s still wary of breaking their silent agreement, even though this time it’s not about her.

When the project is closed, as mysteriously as it started, and Phil gets reassigned to the brand-new Pegasus facility, Melinda can feel his relief mingling with hers.

***

A sudden spike of worry on Phil’s part is the first warning she gets that something out of the ordinary is happening. One hour later, as news from the Pegasus facility – or, rather, news that the Pegasus facility does not exist anymore – start filtering through, Melinda has already felt Phil cycle through disbelief, fear (not something that shows up often in Phil’s mind, she has to say), until he finally settled into the quiet determination that is his usual mission mindset. She doesn’t know where he is, only that he’s too far away for her to contact him directly.

_This is big, Mel_ , was the last thought he sent her. Some of his old excitement before the unknown had resurfaced as he added, _just wait until I can tell you about it_.

The mental images that were filtering through along with that – someone in a ridiculous horned helmet, along with something that looked disturbingly like the staff or scepter that had started this whole thing years ago – did very little to help ease Melinda’s apprehension. At least Phil sounded excited about it, she concluded, still thinking back to that first mission and how it had changed everything.

***

A few hours later, Melinda is sitting at her desk, trying to at least pretend that she can do some of her work as normal today despite the way her hands are shaking with an adrenaline response that has nothing to do with the happenings of a dull SHIELD cubicle, when the mental link flares up again. Of all the definitely-not-normal stuff that is going on today – there have been rumors of _Barton_ going rogue, for fuck’s sake –, this is probably the weirdest, she thinks.

It doesn’t feel like Phil has moved closer to her, not really – he still feels far away, unreachable, but his presence is sharper, as if something was acting as a catalyst. _The staff_ , Melinda thinks, and for some reason, the thought fills her with inescapable dread.

The sharper link means that she has a clear feeling of Phil’s emotions as they change from apprehension (with a nebulous focus on Strike Team Delta, so hey, maybe the rumors about Barton were not unfounded after all) to anger, finally settling on a hard-set determination that Melinda barely recognizes as Phil’s own. Behind all that, there’s the primal fear of someone who knows they’re risking their life.

_Phil. Phil, no._ In her mind, it feels like she’s shouting, and she hates it, but she also knows that he’s still too far away to hear her properly. She focuses on the baseline of their bond, the empathic link, doing all she can to –

All of a sudden, she’s with Phil. She can’t see what he sees, not exactly, but she has a feeling of someone else being in the room, a heavy load in her – his arms, focused determination, the calm before pulling the trigger.

She senses something behind him, just a heartbeat before sharp, unbearable, all-encompassing pain flares in his – her chest.

Just like that, she’s back in her cubicle, clutching at her chest with both hands. Rationally, she knows before looking down that she’s not hurt, that the blood she feels seeping through her fingers will not be there. Seeing it with her own eyes does nothing to diminish the pain.

Phil is still there. She latches on to that, holding him as close as she can. It hurts, and there’s something – some sort of force that feels like it’s pushing her away. It takes her a while – time is getting blurred, she realizes, as are her surroundings, stretching into a dark tunnel she can’t see the end of – to realize that the force is Phil. With all the strength he has left, Phil is fighting the bond.

_Please_ , she begs. _Please_.

She can’t feel what’s happening with any clarity anymore. There has been a short spike of something that resembled pride in Phil’s chest, one fleeting moment when she hoped things could still, would be all right. Now, she knows there’s someone crouching in front of him. Someone known. Fury.

Phil is making an effort to talk. There’s something, desperation, the fleeting feeling of a higher purpose, frustration that it won’t be enough. Then –

_Sorry_ , she feels. It’s not a word as much as a feeling, a message, something that Phil wanted her to hear. His last contact with her is filled with regret. He’s fading, she realizes, and surges forward to wrap herself around him, keep him –

The bond is gone.

***

Days later, they will tell her that she screamed. That she cried and curled up on the floor and that no one could touch her without her flailing blindly at them. If it weren’t for her hoarse throat and the soreness in her limbs, she wouldn’t believe them. She has no memory of what happened apart from the feeling that for the first time in years, she was – she _is_ alone in her own mind.

***

Charles Xavier says that she will survive.

The only reason she listens to him – _it doesn’t matter who talks to her, doesn’t matter, she’s alone_ – is because he’s in her head. He’s not the right person, and he’s not there in the right _way_ , but for a moment, it’s enough to make her listen.

He says that she will survive, and there’s a faint undercurrent of images in his mind (his sister, someone who Melinda really hopes is not Magneto but sure feels worryingly like him) which tell her that he thinks he’s saying that from personal experience. It makes her want to laugh.

There is no meaningful reference point for this. It’s never happened to anyone else. But it’s happening to her, and from now on, she will have to live with it.

***

It’s been six days. She’s slowly regaining awareness of things such as where her body ends and where the gaping, soul-sucking emptiness of the missing bond begins. She also feels slightly less like her mind is constantly on the verge of spilling out onto the carpet.

Oh, right, she’s also started getting out of bed. They’ve moved her back from Medical to her apartment, at some point. She doesn’t remember that either.

She knows that SHIELD assigned her a therapist, and that at some point she will be forced to talk to them. She’s trying to postpone that for as long as she can. The thought of anyone poking at her brain, figuratively or otherwise, makes her feel sick.

Barton must have been to see her as well, she thinks. She has a faint memory of him standing beside her bed in Medical. She can only imagine how he feels right now.

Yes, she knows why he feels like that. No, no one has bothered filling her in on the details of Loki’s attack. She just knows, in the same way that she knows it was Loki, or, for that matter, who Loki even is. It’s Phil’s last imprint on her brain. A gift, of sorts, albeit an unconscious one. The knowledge of what his sacrifice – his death was supposed to mean, that it had a purpose after all. An apology – yes, that’s more accurate.

He did say sorry before he went, after all.

She hates that.

She’s standing in her kitchen, listlessly poking at a bowl of lukewarm oatmeal and trying to gauge how long she must wait until she can say that she truly made an effort at eating it, when her whole body suddenly flares up with pain.

When she regains consciousness, or at least awareness of her surroundings – anything that is not _pain_ and _no_ and _wrong_ –, she’s lying on her kitchen floor, her left hand in a puddle of something wet, sticky and quickly congealing.

The oatmeal. Right. Ugh.

Also, her mind is not empty anymore.

She should be feeling – _something_ , she thinks. Joy, maybe, or fulfilment. But the thing in her mind – the shapeless lump that she somehow knows is Phil, the tiny bundle of pain and seared nerve-endings regenerating and limbs becoming aware that they exist again – feels so completely, utterly wrong that she ends up in the bathroom, throwing up the meager contents of her empty stomach into the toilet bowl.

As soon as the dry heaving has subsided enough for her to speak, she picks up her phone and dials Nick Fury. She knows she’s right when he picks up.

***

Project TAHITI is – wrong, bad, a whole ugly mess, from a moral standpoint, that started out as something that could almost be accepted as a medical procedure and devolved into a badly written horror movie. A horror movie Phil was in charge of, of all things.

It also brought Phil back.

Melinda may not know how she feels about it – she might never know how she feels about it, to be honest –, but she does know how Phil feels about it. From the moment it has reappeared, their bond had been throbbing with nothing but pain, fear and disgust from Phil’s side.

She’s seen him – Fury has been so kind as to let her see him. He’s still lying in a hospital bed, an array of machines providing life support as well as whatever unnatural chemical is required to manage the healing process. The doctors say he’s still not conscious. Melinda has given up on correcting them. Since she arrived here, she’s stopped shouting.

The combination of relief and revulsion when she touched Phil’s hand was overwhelming.

She knows what the procedure will be as soon as he regains consciousness. She’s been given a briefing, before they asked her to sign the consent forms as Phil’s medical proxy. She knows the treatment recommendations, even if she doesn’t know the full reasons, and she knows that part of them was made or at least approved by Phil himself.

She refused to sign. They’ve already informed her that the procedure will continue anyway.

***

“It’s in my mind. All of this,” she points out. Technically, she’s talking to the medical officer who’s sitting on the opposite side of the desk in front of her. Still, she can’t shake the weight of Fury’s eye on her from the back of the room. (She blames him, yes. In his place, she would have made the exact same choice, but she still blames him.) “How will you be able to wipe it out without touching my memories?”

Technically, she still doesn’t know they’re not going to wipe her memory as well. They could strap her to an operating table and she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. At the same time, Fury’s gaze tells her they’re not going to.

“We are counting on you to keep those memories safe,” Dr Streiten says, calmly. “Prof. Xavier assures us that this is possible.”

_It is_ , Melinda thinks. “What makes you so sure that I will even try?”

In lieu of an answer, Dr Streiten gives her a thick medical folder. “These,” he says, “are the full reports for the previous TAHITI subjects. I would advise you to read them before you make your decision, Agent May.”

From his vantage point at the back of the room, Fury nods minutely.

***

They’d warned her that the mind-wipe would be painful. They didn’t say how much.

She asked whether Phil will remember the procedure. They told her that they would implant a proxy memory, along with the imperative not to dwell upon it. A sort of deterrent, they said. So that he won’t be tempted to search further.

She asks to be seated next to him during the wipe. The doctors exchange a look, before one of them suggests that she might want to be lying down instead. In hindsight, they’re right.

It would be easier if Phil didn’t have to be awake for the procedure to work. It would be easier if she hadn’t felt his initial marvel at being alive morph suddenly into revulsion.

_Let me die._ It’s Phil’s first conscious thought in two weeks, and it hits her with all the weight it deserves, even before he starts speaking. “Please, let me die!”

For months, she will ask herself who he was begging, if it was Fury or her. If it was her, it also counts as Phil’s last conscious attempt at communicating through the bond.

***

“We’re afraid something went wrong with the procedure,” Dr Streiten tells her, and she’s this close to answering, _you don’t say_.

She noticed it as soon as Phil woke up, of course – or the doctors told her he did, since as soon as the mind-wipe procedure ended she was led to a different room (where she proceeded to puke her guts out, again, but that’s no one’s business and certainly not the doctors’). True, Phil’s thoughts felt a lot more focused than they had as he had drifted through sleep after the wipe. This time, however, Phil’s return to consciousness hadn’t been accompanied by any attempt to resume communication with her.

She tried, of course, tentatively poking at Phil’s mind, only to be met with – not a wall, not quite. More like a soft, unyielding blank surface. She still had access, if she wanted to – which she very quickly decided she _didn’t_ , not when it was obvious that Phil wasn’t even aware she was there at all, even though her presence in his mind seemed to lead to an increasing, generalized sense of discomfort.

The bond, the neurologist tells her, is – not broken, exactly, since she has retained full use of it, and since Phil’s mind doesn’t show any of the damage it would if the bond was gone, she can confirm that. It’s just _malfunctioning_ , somehow. Dr Streiten’s guess – hypothesis, he says, but to Melinda, it’s as good as – is that Melinda being in Phil’s mind as his memories were erased has caused the bond to be caught up in the mental deterrents the wipe has put in place, the subconscious triggers that should prevent Phil from even starting to look for information on his return to life and recovery. To put it simply, the bond is still there, but Phil is locked out, unable to even think about it.

After her conversation with Dr Streiten is finished, Melinda doesn’t even get a chance to stop shaking before Fury informs her of his plans regarding Phil, and of her role in them.

She doesn’t say no. Can’t. Just as she can’t stop thinking that now she’s nothing but one among the people who have done things to Phil’s mind against his will.

That night, she dreams of a woman giving her a massage on a tropical island. She looks just like Dr Goodman. As soon as Melinda realizes that, the woman starts methodically pulling her limbs apart, until Melinda is woken up by her own thrashing and screaming.

***

It’s only three or four weeks before Phil comes to convince her to leave her office job. Melinda doesn’t even have to nudge him through the bond for him to offer her everything. A place on the team, as the pilot, of all things. On the kind of plane that she’s always wanted to try out, on top of that – Fury had left that out of the briefing, or maybe it was Phil who negotiated for that, so that he could have something to entice her with. Add to that the unspoken promise of letting her on to Phil’s decisions, as much as circumstances will allow. A second in command, so to speak. The reminder that she’s Phil’s friend, that for all intents and purposes, she will be his equal.

The knowledge that Phil is looking forward to that, that it will make him happy, the thought shining so bright in his mind that Melinda can’t help but see it.

She knows that being so close to Phil will mean being unable to ignore the bond. It’s just one more violation of Phil’s trust. It’s exactly why Fury put her in that place.

Most importantly, it’s the best way to keep Phil safe, to give her a chance to try something other than simply putting a bullet through his brain as soon as the TAHITI programming goes wrong – and it will, she has no illusions about that. In the end, this last consideration is all that matters.

Melinda says yes, and reminds herself that despite everything, she still had a choice. Just like she had in Bahrain. This, keeping Phil safe, is her choice.

She remembers shouting at Fury, on those first days after Phil was brought back, and almost considers sending him some form of apology.

***

The thing is, life on the Bus, as their ragtag team has taken to calling the 616, wouldn’t even be half bad if it weren’t for, well, everything else. It has, Melinda muses, a certain domesticity to it. Part of it must be constantly being this close to Phil, after so many years of what she can now admit, in the privacy of her own mind – and isn’t that weird, finally having thoughts that she knows for sure she can keep to herself without paying too much attention –, was denying her own wishes. Even with a one-sided bond, sharing the same spaces and knowing where Phil is throughout the day is helping Melinda get through the shock that was his death, no matter how temporary. It’s also providing a constant reminder of how well Phil and her fit together, how they make the perfect team, even if they don’t exactly have a channel of communication open at all times any more.

Dwelling on that train of thought, however, is not the wisest thing she can do right now, especially when Phil himself doesn’t seem at all aware of how their closeness is affecting her. In that respect, Grant Ward provides a welcome distraction – no strings attached, about as emotionally compromised as she is and definitely less used to coping with it. The latter aspect is becoming clearer and clearer by the day since Phil made the not-so-unorthodox choice of picking up Skye (SHIELD has never been terribly traditional in their recruiting, after all). Melinda, however, is not going to worry about that as long as there are more pressing matters to be concerned about.

Sleep, for instance, is becoming a significant issue. There is a reason she rarely shared living quarters with Phil, even before Andrew and Bahrain and everything else, and that has to do with how easily their dreams blend together through the bond. At best, it’s an unsettling experience; right now, it’s a liability.

Every two or three nights, Phil will dream about Tahiti. In his memories, it’s just the island – white sand, sunny skies, tropical cocktails and (what the fuck, really) physical therapy in the form of masseuses. It’s like something out of a brochure, blatantly designed to elicit relaxation and a surplus of pleasurable feelings all around. A magical place, so to speak.

Every two or three nights, Melinda will find herself in Phil’s dream, and be flung back on the operating table, Phil’s consciousness clawing at hers in a panic as he begs to be allowed to die. The inevitable outcome is for both of them to wake up sweating and panting, caught up in a fight-or-flight response that makes way too much sense to Melinda, but is so at odds with Phil’s dreams that really, it’s only surprising that he isn’t getting _more_ suspicious.

Melinda dutifully reports the dreams to Fury. She dutifully describes how touching the Berserker staff (and really, what is it about alien staffs in her life) heightened her sensitivity to the bond to the point that she was expecting Phil to pick up on it at any moment. Fury passes the reports on to the medical team, and Dr Streiten remarks on how well the deterrents they put in Phil’s mind are holding up.

Once more, she doesn’t contradict him. She’s too tired for that.

***

Pranking Fitz isn’t meant to be a test. Pranking Fitz is meant to be something she does because she feels like it, one small brick in the wall of her own recovery, that oh-so-familiar process that she’s been instructed not to neglect. It suddenly turns into a test when Phil, after everyone else adamantly refused to take responsibility for the mess of shaving cream on Fitz’s face, suddenly goes, “May. You should try asking May.”

It’s not the first time, of course. It happened when Phil came to talk to her during her tai chi routine, and she forgot herself enough that she didn’t bother answering his questions out loud. During briefings, Phil will look at her and bring up objections that clearly don’t come from him, and that won’t even give him pause, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

While Melinda, watching the live feed from her cockpit, shivers in fear at Phil’s guess, the rest of the team raises a chorus of ‘May? Are you crazy?’ Well, apart from Skye, it seems, who’s nodding along with Phil.

“Wait, you believe that?” Ward, always paying more attention to her than he does to everyone else.

“Well, yes. I mean, it’s May. You and May, I mean,” she adds, turning towards Coulson. “Look, we all know you have – they have that whole mind-voodoo thing going on, haven't you noticed? Voicing each other's thoughts, creepy stuff like that. Come on, guys, don’t tell me in all this time I’m the only one who noticed that!”

Thankfully, everyone laughs and brushes her off, and Simmons’ suggestion that they should design an experiment to test it is nothing more than a joke. Melinda takes a deep breath, and goes to file another report to Streiten. It sounds more panicked that she’d have liked it to be.

***

Of all the ways this whole mess could come to a head, she wasn’t expecting it to be through Mike Peterson and the girl in the flower dress. And yet, as she stands in front of a burning bridge, Melinda knows both that Phil is not dead and that he’s never been in more danger since Loki.

There’s a moment, as they regroup on the Bus, everyone’s morale as low as it’s ever been, when Skye looks at her expectantly, almost like she's about to ask if she knows where Phil is. Ultimately, however, she stays silent. It’s enough to make May think of a plan, something that involves Skye herself quite heavily. The one thing she’s left is the hope that Phil, as always, didn’t make a mistake when he recruited her.

***

He didn’t, of course. As they storm the abandoned town, Melinda knows without doubt that Phil’s in there. It’s the clearest feeling she’s had since he was kidnapped, as whatever they’re doing to him is playing havoc with the bond, making her unable to keep contact with him apart from a general awareness that he’s alive. That awareness is what’s been keeping her alert, not letting her give in to the part of her that wants to curl up in a corner and let herself be overwhelmed by the memories of the battle on the Helicarrier, of losing Phil and then finding him again, terrified and broken and hurt.

It stops being enough when she enters a bungalow only to be faced with Phil hooked up to a machine, whimpering and thrashing, the bond flaring back to life along with the absolute certainty that Phil remembers about TAHITI, that he’s there right now, the pain and terror flooding through the link and almost bringing Melinda down to her knees.

_It's for his own good_ , Dr Goodman’s voice in her head says, as even Dr Streiten begs for Phil to be released, and right then she’s back at the side of the operating table, the machine emotionlessly stabbing at Phil’s brain.

When she pulls the plug from the wall, it’s for her own sanity as much as Phil’s. As she fights to pull herself together before anyone else arrives, she focuses on Skye comforting Phil, and she knows from the way he focuses on her alone that he doesn’t remember the bond, not yet. Right now, it feels like a mercy.

Fury’s answer to that night’s report contains a reminder about what to do if Phil’s behavior starts showing signs of deteriorating. Melinda deletes it with a vicious pleasure, then digs through the trash to recover it.

***

If it hadn’t been for the bond subconsciously prodding him to look for Melinda instead, maybe Phil would have started worrying about Skye sooner. He could have reached Quinn’s villa before she went in, or at least reached her before she got shot. Anything but the course of action that led to Skye being trapped in the hyperbaric chamber that is keeping her alive, Phil sitting next to her all night, consumed by guilt that Melinda can easily read, psychic connection or not.

What happens next feels like part of a plan unfolding out of their control – whether it’s the Clairvoyant, fate, or just a keen sense of Melinda’s failure as Phil decides that the only way to save Skye is the Guest House compound. Melinda can’t dissuade him without breaking her own cover, and so she drives the Bus to a SHIELD facility she remembers all too well.

She remembers little of what happens next, because as soon as he walks into the Guest House with Ward, Fitz and Garrett, Phil disappears completely from her mind. The feeling of utter emptiness is made even worse by the way it’s somehow familiar by now – she even knows that Phil will come back, and the fact that the pain is temporary somehow turns it into a mockery of sorts. She barely manages to lock herself in the cockpit before giving in to the panic attack.

She can’t do anything about what’s happening. This is the sharpest thing in her mind right now, and it’s what sends her spiraling.

When the fog in her mind finally clears, it’s to the overwhelming pressure of Phil’s own panic. Instinctively, she reaches out to him. Phil’s mind is a jumble of denial, terror, topped with a frantic focus on Skye and guided by the imperative need to stop whatever’s about to happen to her. At least, that’s what Melinda gets from the brief glimpse she’s allowed before Phil slams her out.

He does it with such deliberate viciousness that there is little doubt about what just happened. She barely has time to pick up the secure phone. “He knows,” she tells the record that she knows Fury checks personally every day. “I repeat. Coulson knows.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the dialogue in this chapter comes from AoS episodes 1x17 to 1x22. Hat-tip to [this transcript site](http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=8801) for making it easily accessible.

What Phil needs is a chance to sit down for a few hours and think things through. Formulate a strategy, if you wish. He’s always been good at that part, after all, a natural ability that SHIELD Academy had been very happy to capitalize on. If only he had some quiet time and a chance to think about himself and not everyone else on the team.

Instead, it takes no more than a few hours – and an encrypted message on SHIELD frequencies – for his life to be turned upside down. _Hydra._ He spent his whole goddamn university life researching their pre- and post-war operations and SHIELD’s effort to bring the whole network down. He could hardly have imagined they were within SHIELD the whole time.

That said, perhaps his research shortcomings are not the first thing he should be thinking about at the moment.

Right now, he barely knows if there’s a SHIELD anymore. If – _if_ , because Phil still doesn’t believe that, he can’t, no matter the fact that he knows that Melinda was not lying about what they told her – if Fury really is dead, then he guesses SHIELD is too.

He pushes away the worry about the friends he hasn’t seen since he died. Barton, Romanoff, the rest of the Avengers – he doesn’t know where they are, but he knows beyond any doubt that they’re not Hydra, and that means they’re in danger right now.

At the same time, he has to constantly push away similar worries about Andrew Garner, about a father and mother who are not his but are both connected to secret agencies of their own and have a daughter within SHIELD that can now easily be turned into leverage.

Yeah. That. And as if Phil didn’t have enough on his platter right now, there is also the small matter of Melinda’s pain bleeding through the back of his mind as they rush through the Bus and the gunshots still raining on it, an unwelcome reminder that she’s been shot, and that whatever his current doubts about her, his top priority has automatically become patching her up.

So that’s what he does. He finds a room that seems safe enough and has a stash of medical supplies he can use. His hands are almost steady as he digs into the wound for the bullet, ignoring both the shared pain and the grief he can feel welling up on Melinda’s side of the bond as well as his. It’s an unspoken acknowledgment that they’re both starting to believe it, that the thought that Nick might truly be dead is sinking in.

“It’s just you and me,” he tells her, and for a moment that’s their only thought, wrapped up in a jumble of emotions that he won’t even begin to untangle, knowing – _remembering_ – that there’s no point in asking how much of it is his own and how much is coming from Melinda’s side. He remembers now that there is no point making that distinction. It’s almost funny, how easily his mind falls back upon familiar thought patterns. He doesn’t even want to go near to considering how comforting it feels.

Right now, however, he mostly feels numb, the kind of numbness that stems from exhaustion as much as discouragement. Once again, he knows that Melinda feels that too.

Getting the details of Fury’s assignment from her is surprisingly easy. Maybe it’s their physical closeness, lowering their mental barriers further. Maybe it’s just that the whole purpose of Melinda’s surveillance has been defeated.

As she lists Fury’s worries, he wants to grab her shoulders, shake her and shout that he’s fine, that he regained his memories and nothing happened, so _why_ keep them from him in the first place. It’s not just Melinda’s wound that stops him from doing that. He can tell that the answer to that question is among the things that Melinda is still keeping from him, the answers he knows are still hidden in her mind. He could dig for them, he thinks, but he won’t – he knows she never did that with him, not even when it was part of her mission, and he’s not about to cross that particular barrier, not now.

What he can do, right now, is ask her why she accepted Fury’s mission. Her answer is not entirely surprising, but that doesn’t make it hurt less.

“I did it for you,” she says, and Phil can feel tears of frustration and exhaustion prickling against his eyes. “To protect you.” Her voice cracks. “You mean a lot to me. A lot. When I felt you die –” She cuts herself off after that, but it’s too late to prevent some of the images from slipping into Phil’s mind. For a moment, he can feel the bond breaking in Melinda’s mind, he can feel himself disappearing and then coming back, the searing pain during the first stages of the TAHITI procedure cursing through him in a blur of his own body’s memories and Melinda’s. Underneath that, he can sense something else, a surge of passion and protectiveness that is almost painful to behold in itself, and not just because it’s a feeling he recognizes from his own past reflections on Melinda.

A bitten-off cry brings him back to reality, and he realizes that he’s been clamping down with his hand on Melinda’s injured shoulder. He steps back as if he’d been burnt. His vision is blurred, but he can see the tears in Melinda’s eyes, and he knows they’re not just coming from the physical pain.

“You may not believe me,” she forces herself to say, and he can feel her pulling out of his mind, can still feel the reluctance that comes with that after all the time they’ve been as good as forced apart. “But that’s the truth.”

He can still hear gunfire outside, just another reminder that they don’t have time for this, not now.

“I want to believe you,” he finally answers. “But you’ve used that against me this whole time.”

As they walk out of the room, still side by side, Melinda’s bitterness and exhaustion blends with his own.

***

The good news, apparently, is that they have internet, and that Nick may or may not be alive. That about sums it up. The bad news is, well, everything else. Starting with the knowledge that someone messed with his head, that _his whole life_ is apparently made of people messing with his head, and going all the way down to the fact that they’re currently stranded in the middle of the Canadian wilderness, with nothing but the prospect of freezing to death in front of them, and the rising suspicion that Fury’s coordinates might not be Fury’s coordinates after all, or that they lead to nowhere anyway. Considering the situation, it’s surprising it even takes Melinda voicing her disbelief for Phil to break down.

The thing is, he does believe that the SHIELD badge in his hand means something, coordinates or not. It may be the last thing he believes in, and feeling Melinda’s nagging doubts growing at the back of his mind as he speaks-slash-cries out in desperation might just be the last straw for Phil.

He’s about to lash out against that when the forest around them comes alive with defensive tech. He’s never been happier to be stared down by a turret in his entire life.

***

The lie detector sounds like a stupid idea, no matter how Agent Koenig insists this machine can outsmart the Black Widow. ( _Natasha._ Phil hopes she’s alive, at least. He wonders if she knows about Nick. If she doesn’t, the hurt is going to – _don’t. She can take care of herself._ Out of all of them, she’s the one who’s the closest to having been through this before.) Anyway, whatever the benefit, it’s not worth the spike of emotion coursing through the bond as Melinda flat-out tells Koenig that she’s here for Phil.

That emotion is still at the back of Phil’s thoughts when Melinda comes to confront him about not being allowed on the Audrey mission. Maybe he should not be thinking about it as the Audrey mission. Maybe he should stop letting everything affect him so personally.

He hates it. He hates how thin his boundaries have become, hates feeling this vulnerable. Hates that the easiest thing to do is to lash out at the earliest opportunity.

Melinda questioning his orders, patronizing him over things having become personal – and it’s not a surprise, how close to his own thoughts that feels, _she’s been in his head all this time, hasn’t she_ – provides just that opportunity.

“We don’t do personal,” he bites back, enjoying feeling Melinda recoil from the hit. He presses in, because he can. “Not anymore.”

“Phil. You know I’m not hiding anything. You didn’t need that stupid polygraph thing to help you with that.”

He shakes his head. That’s beyond the pale even for her. “You mean you’re not hiding anything _else_ , apart from everything regarding the TAHITI project.”

“I won’t tell you more than you already know. It’s dangerous, Phil. You have to trust me on this, and I _know_ it’s the one thing I shouldn’t be asking of you right now, but it can kill you. Knowing more _can_ kill you, and I – I’m not letting that happen.” He can feel her desperation again, just like when he was patching her up on the Bus, mixed up with that _other_ bundle of feelings he’s still refusing to look at.

Instead, he pushes back. “You saw me. You saw me searching for the truth, you _felt it_. You saw someone in agony –” he can feel the memories of the mind-wipe welling up, and he sort of feels like a dick for what comes next, but he still soldiers on – “and you didn’t say anything. That’s wrong, Melinda.” She makes a move to interrupt him, but he won’t allow her, he’s still not done. “And don’t tell me it’s because you care so damn much.”

The mess of unspoken feeling is pushing up at the forefront of Melinda’s mind now, along with the hurt she’s barely trying to hide. Phil doesn’t even need to say anything anymore. As soon as she realizes that he can feel that, that despite it he’s not doing anything to soften the blow, Melinda turns on her heels and storms out. The last thing he feels from her is understanding, a reminder that she knows why he’s doing this, that she understands his mind as much as he does. That some part of her, at least, thinks he’s right. It doesn’t do anything to placate his anger, but it does make him wonder how much of it is directed at Melinda and how much at himself.

***

He comes back from Portland to an empty base. Rationally, of course, he knows it’s not empty, that the rest of his team is still around. Of course, he also knows that Melinda is not.

The bond tells him that she’s far enough away by now that she doesn’t even need to actively block him out. He still doesn’t feel alone in his mind, the baseline empathic connection still operating as normal, but all the technical jargon he can use doesn’t do much to help the fact that Melinda’s absence hurts, that no matter how much he’s been resenting the connection since the Guest House he still misses it, like a lost limb.

That night, as he curls up in his bunk and waits for sleep to come and wipe his thoughts away for a few hours, he hopes that Melinda is far enough away not to feel what’s going on in his mind. If she can feel it and she’s not coming back –

Well, at least he can enjoy the irony in this.

He stops that train of thought before it even starts. Instead, he curls up around the hole in his mind and tries to sleep.

***

If Phil thought he was exhausted before, well. This doesn’t even begin to compare. Then, again, he _has_ jumped off a plane in a flying car today. That doesn’t happen often.

He pretends that thought is enough to make him smile.

He knows Skye is safe with the rest of the team, as safe as she can ever be. He tries to focus on that, blocking out all the worry and anger at himself for not understanding what was going on sooner, not even suspecting Ward of being Hydra despite all the signs. For being so focused on himself and Melinda and the whole mess between them that he allowed a traitor to endanger his team.

It’s the second time he fails at protecting Skye. He knows that there will be others, no matter what he vows he will or won’t do again.

The other thing he knows is that Melinda is coming back. He hates the way that knowledge reminds him of the bond, makes him want to scrape it out of his head, and at the same time makes him feel relieved. He hates that as soon as he steps into his motel room he knows Melinda is waiting in there, and he hates how happy he is to see her.

Most importantly, however, he knows that everything that happened lately is his own fault, that Melinda is not the one who’s been making mistake after mistake and hurting people. The first thing he has to do is apologize.

When he tells Melinda that he was hoping she’d come back, it comes as news to both of them.

Anyway, it seems that Melinda came back for a reason.

“I have something to show you,” she says, handing him a flash drive. As their fingers brush against each other’s, he catches a glimpse of her digging into his grave to retrieve it, and uh, that’s something he wants to know more about. Right now, however, his priority is to see what’s on the memory stick.

After Phil is finished watching himself give instructions on the termination of the TAHITI protocol, it’s up to Melinda to break the stunned silence.

“This is what I was shown before they wiped your memory.” Her voice is level, but they’re close enough that Phil can’t help sensing every nuance of her emotions. “I thought it would be better for you to see this, rather than trust me to tell you the truth, bond or not,” she adds, and the accuracy of her prediction stings.

“So this is why you were monitoring me.” He doesn’t really need the confirmation, but he needs to give Melinda a chance to say something, preferably before his fears get the better of him.

She nods anyway. “Doing what Fury asked me to do – it meant that if something went wrong, if you started showing signs of degeneration, there could be another solution, a way to get through it that was not shooting you in the head. I couldn’t refuse.”

There’s a pause as Phil tries to figure out what to say. He’s almost given up when Melinda adds, “I’m still sorry. For what it’s worth.”

“It is. Worth something, I mean.” He wets his lips. “See, the thing is – the one way we always thought we were supposed to navigate all this was by setting boundaries and respecting them. And that was fine, but then you – you were put in a situation where you had to walk all over these boundaries, and I couldn’t have a say in that, for obvious reasons – and just so it’s clear, I’m not blaming you for that, just like I’m not blaming Nick for starting the TAHITI procedure for me in the first place. I would have done the same thing.”

He can feel the morose direction Melinda’s thoughts are shifting towards, so he doesn’t allow himself to pause. “And the thing is – after all that’s happened – remember the things we always said we should do? I still want to do all of them. Remember that bottle of Haig we kept saying we were going to open? Yeah, I don’t know why we never did that. I still – I still want all this. I went without it for almost a year, and I didn’t even know what I was missing, and now – and I guess you get that better than I thought, because I did die on you, didn’t I?”

The mere mention of his death brings a sharp pinprick of pain through the bond, and yes, this is something they will need to talk about, because he can’t imagine what those few days did to Melinda, but he still wants to know. Underneath that, he can still feel that tangle of emotion and longing, the one he knows too well from seeing it so many times in his own mind. It’s what prompts him to open his mouth again.

“See, I – you mean a lot to me, too. Although I guess that was rather obvious. But, well. Needed to say it, I guess.” He smiles at his own lack of eloquence. “Is this going to be another of those conversations where I just blabber on and you don’t say anything but nudge me in the right direction?”

This time, the bond lights up with Melinda’s amusement. _Maybe_ , she says, and he can feel her smile in his head.

_Good_ , he sends back, with a smile of his own. _I like those._

He’s so close to Melinda’s mind, just right now, and all of a sudden, he’s aware of just how much he missed this. The intimacy of it. All those things are lighting up in his mind, and he knows that Melinda can see them, she can see the feeling behind them, and she’s not pulling back.

He’s still hesitant as he tilts his head towards Melinda’s. _Is this okay?_

_Yes_ , she answers, closing the gap with both her lips and her mind. _More than okay._

***

Nick is alive, if a little worse off than the last time they saw each other; Garrett is dead, Ward is in custody – and oh, Melinda has _plans_ for him, and seeing her being her best, fiercest self puts Phil in a disturbingly good mood, considering the situation.

They have won, after all.

All in all, Phil’s day was going pretty well, even before Nick decided to all but call him an Avenger outright. As for Nick’s speech about what SHIELD means – he’s never believed it more than he does right now, with Melinda standing next to him, tired and banged up but whole, her mind a warm and comforting presence. When Fury mentions people being worth saving, the memory of her and Bahrain is as prominent in his thoughts as the pain of TAHITI is in Melinda’s.

That, of course, is before Nick whips out the small black toolbox. “You’ll be the head,” he says, and the certainty in Melinda’s mind that Phil is about to become Director is humbling and faintly amusing at the same time.

“Both of you,” Nick adds, grinning at the brief flash of astonishment on Melinda’s usually blank face. Phil, on the other hand, is sure he looks about as surprised as he feels, which is, not at all. “I took a page out of Hydra’s book, for once – replacing one head with two doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. Plus, it would have been a hopeless mess of a security leak if I decided to put you on different levels. Even I can see that.”

_About time_ , is Melinda’s sardonic, silent comment.

As her emotions slowly move from incredulity to something that feels a lot like pride, Phil finds himself unable to stop smiling. If he could, he’d take Melinda’s hand. As it is, he sends a warm tendril of thought through the bond, letting Melinda sense his own happiness. _Together_ , he tells her. _We’re doing this together._

***

That night, Melinda wakes up to an empty bed and a mind filled with patterns, lines and circles and shapes, along with a burning, all-encompassing, almost violent need to _get them out_.

It doesn’t last long. As soon as the compulsion stops, she gets out of bed and goes looking for Phil.

She finds him kneeling in front of a wall, staring at the knife he’s still clutching and trying desperately to wrestle the panic in his mind back under control. She takes his hand, entwining their fingers together as she sits cross-legged next to him. Phil sags against her shoulder immediately, shivering from exhaustion and the chilly air.

She can still feel his fear, and her own mixing with it.

_We’ll get through this_ , she sends him, along with all the reassurance she can muster. _We’ll be okay._

_We’re still doing this together, after all._

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you are more than welcome to check out [my Tumblr](http://stepantrofimovic.tumblr.com/).


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